So…Today Is The Day…

Today it seems is the day our government sign the death warrant of 2,500 local Post Offices across the nation.

It has to happen the Government are screaming. We can’t allow the losses of £3.5M per week to continue any more – these cuts are essential.

I am beginning to wonder who these people are that claim to represent us, the defenders of our realm.

They seem to have glossed over the facts that for a considerable period of time, at least 18 months now, there has been a deliberate and underhand withdrawl of services from the sub Post Offices which has put them in a completely untenable position – probably so that we shouldn’t complain when they finally shut. For instance, banking facilities have been drastically cut back (especially for business users like me) or if you have the “wrong” sort of debit card (like me), services they can organize have been cut back (or the potential earnings from them at least)- despite the fancy adverts recently using Westlife and Wendy Richards. You cannot even get a passport application from your local Post Office. Our local Postmaster wants to revamp his shop to make it more user friendly, to bring it into the 21st Century – the powers that Be say NO. Our office isn’t under threat (yet) but the Postmaster is at the end of his tether with lost services, restrictions on activities, and the gradual removal of collections of post from there. How mad is it that I can use a cash machine in the garage in the next village (with my wrong sort of debit card) and get cash – but my Postmaster can’t help me now.

Because of this, we are not allowed to use our Post Offices to support them as they simply cannot provide much other service than taking parcels and stamping them.

How has this been allowed to happen? Why isn’t anyone being held up as being accountable for this shambles and for these losses? I simply refuse to believe that every single Post Office is losing (costing) money (with my businessman’s hat on)… where are the figures? Are they split for every single Office to justify the closure of each office? If so, I haven’t seen it mentioned. OR is it only because events have been orchestrated to end up this way deliberately?

We are told to get out of our cars where possible, assuming you can still afford to drive one! but what is the option. Labour completely destroyed all the branch line railways around here 50 odd years ago. As a consequence our bus services have to go all around every village meaning a bus trip to Leicester from here, a distance of only 17 miles, takes over an hour and a half each way. The doctors now only open four and a half days a week – but there is a “local” walk in centre…. if you can find a bus on a Sunday to go to Loughborough – 10 miles away – yes, really local.

No-one has yet suggested a scheme to “save” all these Post Offices. A few are being taken over by councils and they are confident a profit can be made??? Why isn’t there anyone looking at this latest erosion of services? Is there no-one, such as Sir Alan Sugar, Sir Richard Branson, or even little old me, that could not make these Post Offices viable?

How much further will we allow the government to push us into this dark hole, where the poorest people are taxed the heaviest, where local amenities and services are being destroyed as they are too expensive, where people who have offered their lives for our benefit (The Gurkas) are being denied the right to settle here when it is open house for just about everyone else???

These are the people supposedly acting on our behalf for our own good – with a leader that hasn’t even been democratically elected by us!! How does that work?? Maybe another post sometime for that…

I am a qualified Certified Practising Accountant having passed my final exams way back in 1981. I actually can’t believe that was 37 years ago!! Anyway, I am now in my 60’s and I have been running my own business since May 1983. And before you ask, no, I have never regretted a moment of it!
Part of the membership requirements of my professional body now dictate that I spend quite a lot of time on “CPD” - continuing professional education (one of their better ideas) - and over the last two years I decided to study business growth and marketing.
I have learnt such a lot and that knowledge has radically changed my old “accountants” approach to business. It has made such a difference to the way I work and operate I feel that I just have to pass on this knowledge. It is simply too powerful to hold back!! - but I will try and do it in simple terms rather than expecting you to spend hours, as I had to, working through the difficult language that trainers seem to use to pass on their concepts.
I hope you find the blog a useful resource and interesting place to visit as the months pass. I will do my best to keep up the flow - but if there are any topics you would like me to cover, then please let me know.
Ray Stewart